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drewmaster
Oh my god, what to say about one of the greatest tracks in rock and roll history, the track that electrified the world with those glorious crunching guitar chords that announced that the Stones were back, with a swagger and brilliance that no one else could touch.

Start Me Up is perhaps the archetypal example of what it means to rock and roll. Its rhythmic propulsion is amazing … how it swings with the force of a cyclone from start to finish. And those lyrics … so deliciously bawdy and yet so utterly sublime. And equally astounding, beyond the quality of the songwriting, is how perfectly in sync all five core band-members are, and how each of them shines so brilliantly.

The quality of the production on Start Me Up is extraordinary, too … it just leaps out of the speakers with stunning force and clarity.

Three minutes and thirty-three sparkling seconds of sonic, rhythmic perfection.

Drew

+ 1

Drewmaster really nails it. A thumbs up from this direction, too! The song was back then a perfect introduction of the unique charm of this band to young fresh ears, and I think it still is like a school example of a typical Stones sound, all cylinders on.

But some more reflection of this important song.

We were discussing "Star Star" last week, and I think one of the discoveries was that it was a kind of land mark song in the sense that the dangers of self caricature and 'Stones by numbers' attitude were there seen for the first time. I think "Start Me Up" is another land mark song. There is a lot of same features as in "Star Star" but they function differently, and with different effect.

Most likely the song derives from SOME GIRLS sessions (I believe in Mathijs' arguments based on ear testimony, and the circulated stuff, but I don't count out the possibility that they might have tried it alraedy during BLACK & BLUE sessions). Like noted here, the riff is a signature one by Keith. That is to say, it is based on 'airy' Open G, like so many classical riffs he had written during the years since introducing it in "Honky Tonk Women", peaking in EXILE. However, what is noteworthy in those Pathe Marconi sessions, and the new sound they created there, was that of not using the old riff pattern and OpenG as much as before. In SOME GIRLS, is there actually only one OpenG song? This is to say that to an extent Keith was probably got a bit tired of it, or thought that he had gotten everything he could get out of it creatively. (The last is my interpretation, but I need to give credit to DandelionPowderman for pointing out this development out of OpenG during the late 70's - a development that is not seen widely these days, if not at all). The danger of non-inspired repitition could be heard, for example, in some IT'S ONLY ROCK'N*ROLL tracks, such as "If You Can't Rock Me". The only track that offers a signature riff in BLACK&BLUE is "Hand of Fate" - only reminder in the album of a 'traditional' Stones rocker.

So my guess is that the rock version of "Never Stop" was something they probably they didn't find that inspiring at all when they tried it during SOME GIRLS sessions. It was 'just another' typical exercise on a signature riff/Open G they could do half-asleep by then, 'Stones by numbers' indeed. Yesterday's Papers. If they really cut "Miss You" in the same session, like is argued somewhere, the contrast in novelty was a huge one.

But things were different three years later when they had this king idea that there are all these potential tracks in the can they could use and make an album out of them. The greatness of TATTOO YOU is that it does have a very little ambition in it. It doesn't even try to make a contemporary statement, to offer an updated version of the band or anything like that. Just a collection of tracks from the vaults. And with that attitude it makes one of their strongest contemporary musical statements ever. A huge success by accident (or due to artistic lazyness). Lucky bastards...

"Start Me Up" was a perfect leading single for the campaign. After "Fool To Cry", "Miss You" and "Emotional Rescue", none of them representing 'typical' Stones at all, but trying to reach currents, "Start Me Up" sounded like "fresh air" as Silver Dagger described. It was simple, basic, classical sounding Stones, "Brown Sugar" updated. And worked damn well in the musical climate of 1981.

The success of TATTOO YOU album and especially retro-sounding "Start Me Up" single, I argue, gave a bit twisted signal for the band. Artistically speaking, it was a rather easy catch. Just do the same old thing, and that will do. With UNDERCOVER and its leading single, the title track, they still tried to do something different, actually update their sound, but unfortunately, it didn't do at all as good as did TATTOO YOU and "Start Me Up". There was a lesson there I guess as well.

The reason why I think that "Start Me Up", to go to my initial point, is a land mark song in their career, is not that it is probably their last huge song (a real classic), but as it offered a new template for the Stones music ever since. Their landmark sound is their best commercial weapon. If you like, the success of "Start Me Up" nailed the coffin in Stones' creative career, and they haven't much tried to get out of there. It is like an argument that 'the Stones sound and should sound like this'. Signature sound is there in, say, "Mixed Emotions", "Highwire", "Don't Stop", "Rough Justice", etc. etc. Lots of OpenG riffage.

So, in a way, I think "Start Me Up" works similarly as "Star Star" once did - going 'Stones-by-numbers', but this time the reference is not Chuck Berry, but their own musical heritage from the golden 1968-72 days, even though the music is a bit simplified caricature-like compared to those rich creative years.

The irony is that for a reason or other, they haven't been able to repeate the success of "Start Me Up", no matter how much they've tried. In a way, there is some originality in the song; probably because it is no manufactured to sound like The Stones, that is, "Start Me Up", but was still created out of inspiration. Its groove is so natural, breathing-like, all the components naturally at home. The band was still so juicy at the time that even their half-baked ideas had a potentiality to become smash hits.

- Doxa



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 2014-10-07 13:37 by Doxa.

As far as the greatness of "Start Me Up" go, I think the production does a helluva lot. I would go so far that I would claim that it is one of their best produced tracks ever, just next to "Honky Tonk Women" (it actually reminds the latter by using the air so well; both tracks breath so well).

If we take the perfect production and wonderful band arrangement away, I don't think there is much of a song left (even though having wit lyrics). "Start Me Up" is more a sound or a riff than a song.

- Doxa

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stonehearted

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barbabang
Just LISTEN to the Start Me Up "1"! It is the Pathe Marconi Studio (room) sound and Chris Kimsey sound. Very much 1977. Unbelievable people still think it is from 1975.



There may still be an unreleased earlier jam from 1975 though, but that is uncirculating.

The rock version comes from 1977, when its working title became Start It Up. The reggae version, the demo, is the original version.

No, ALL versions are from late 1977 or, more likely, early 1978. There's three reggea 'Never Stop' versions that I know off, 1 circulating and two not. The two non-circulating versions are more deep reggea than the circulating one, with a more heavy 'Feel on Baby' kind of bass. Then there's a rock 'Never Stop' version, and 4 or 5 different versions of the final released version, all in different stages of overdubbing.

ALL versions have the same instrumentation, and especially the short scale Travis Bean bass sound is a giveaway for the time period it was recorded in. Wyman received the bass in January 1978 most likely.

Mathijs

Mathijs

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Doxa

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LuxuryStones

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slew
Keith's last great signature riff.

And his first signature riff if memory serves. Amazing how many great Stones songs are based on that one, Start Me Up included.

Yep. I guess "Start Me Up" riff, reincornation of his old ideas, is the last one he would make a bigger impact, that is, it would create the basis and most memorable and recognizable thing of a Rolling Stones classic.

In the end, it is nothing but "Honky Tonk Women", "Brown Sugar" riff recontextualized. Maybe the last time that recontextualization creates actual magic.

- Doxa

Actually that riff goes back as far as 19 Nervous Breakdown, or maybe even earlier, when the open G wasn't yet invented in Stones land. Keith seemed to have an appetite for this kind of rock guitar sound.

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LuxuryStones

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Doxa

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LuxuryStones

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slew
Keith's last great signature riff.

And his first signature riff if memory serves. Amazing how many great Stones songs are based on that one, Start Me Up included.

Yep. I guess "Start Me Up" riff, reincornation of his old ideas, is the last one he would make a bigger impact, that is, it would create the basis and most memorable and recognizable thing of a Rolling Stones classic.

In the end, it is nothing but "Honky Tonk Women", "Brown Sugar" riff recontextualized. Maybe the last time that recontextualization creates actual magic.

- Doxa

Actually that riff goes back as far as 19 Nervous Breakdown, or maybe even earlier, when the open G wasn't yet invented in Stones land. Keith seemed to have an appetite for this kind of rock guitar sound.

It takes 12 seconds for that riff to appear on song #1 on their first album - so it's been there all along

Yep! One can hear the rough idea of what to come some day already in "Route 66"!

- Doxa

One could say that OpenG offered a perfect means to accomplish that kind of musical idea Keith seem to have quite early in his mind. The tuning, especially now when Keith has shown how it can be done, sounds like being created to serve that technique.

- Doxa

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Mathijs

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stonehearted

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barbabang
Just LISTEN to the Start Me Up "1"! It is the Pathe Marconi Studio (room) sound and Chris Kimsey sound. Very much 1977. Unbelievable people still think it is from 1975.



There may still be an unreleased earlier jam from 1975 though, but that is uncirculating.

The rock version comes from 1977, when its working title became Start It Up. The reggae version, the demo, is the original version.

No, ALL versions are from late 1977 or, more likely, early 1978. There's three reggea 'Never Stop' versions that I know off, 1 circulating and two not. The two non-circulating versions are more deep reggea than the circulating one, with a more heavy 'Feel on Baby' kind of bass. Then there's a rock 'Never Stop' version, and 4 or 5 different versions of the final released version, all in different stages of overdubbing.

ALL versions have the same instrumentation, and especially the short scale Travis Bean bass sound is a giveaway for the time period it was recorded in. Wyman received the bass in January 1978 most likely.

Mathijs

Mathijs

I am not good at these kind of speculations, but everything is possible. I agree that the "reggae" - in fact not very reggae - version that I know (the circulating one) very likely was recorded during the Some Girls sessions.

But it could be that the original "reggae" recording is not circulating. Maybe it was nothing more than a sketch on tape, and was redone in studio with the whole band, at first with the original reggae feel.

What I find hard to believe is that Keith came up with that riff in a reggae context. The timing just doesn't fit.

C

They were deeper into reggae during the Black And Blue-sessions as well. Not that it means anything for when SMU in particular was conceived and developed.

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liddas

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Mathijs

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stonehearted

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barbabang
Just LISTEN to the Start Me Up "1"! It is the Pathe Marconi Studio (room) sound and Chris Kimsey sound. Very much 1977. Unbelievable people still think it is from 1975.



There may still be an unreleased earlier jam from 1975 though, but that is uncirculating.

The rock version comes from 1977, when its working title became Start It Up. The reggae version, the demo, is the original version.

No, ALL versions are from late 1977 or, more likely, early 1978. There's three reggea 'Never Stop' versions that I know off, 1 circulating and two not. The two non-circulating versions are more deep reggea than the circulating one, with a more heavy 'Feel on Baby' kind of bass. Then there's a rock 'Never Stop' version, and 4 or 5 different versions of the final released version, all in different stages of overdubbing.

ALL versions have the same instrumentation, and especially the short scale Travis Bean bass sound is a giveaway for the time period it was recorded in. Wyman received the bass in January 1978 most likely.

Mathijs

Mathijs

I am not good at these kind of speculations, but everything is possible. I agree that the "reggae" - in fact not very reggae - version that I know (the circulating one) very likely was recorded during the Some Girls sessions.

But it could be that the original "reggae" recording is not circulating. Maybe it was nothing more than a sketch on tape, and was redone in studio with the whole band, at first with the original reggae feel.

What I find hard to believe is that Keith came up with that riff in a reggae context. The timing just doesn't fit.

C

For the rock version all he did was change the beat around, from up- to downbeat, from 2 to 1, and there it is. Charlie makes a mistake in his intro, so he didn't know what was coming. Then again, it is not so much Keith that change it around, it's Charlie whom changed from the off-beat to the 4-to-the-floor that completely changes the track.

By the way, play it on the on-beat at half tempo and you get 'Munich Hilton', recorded in the same week...

Mathijs

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Mathijs

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stonehearted
<<Isn't there a version dating back to the Black & Blue sessions>>

Under the working title of Never Stop.

Let's try to set the record straight for the umpteenth time...

There is no 1975 version of SMU. All basic tracks of Never Stop/SMU where recorded at Pathe Marconi in late 1977 and early 1978, overdubs where recorded in April 1981. This Never Stop version from Youtube is one of 3 versions, the other two being longer and in much better quality, bit only circulating among tape traders and not released on bootleg.

All available versions have the same sound/instruments: Boogie MKI amps, Travis Bean Bass, Charlie's new cymbals, the Chris Kimsey production.

Mathijs

The track in this YT version is pre-China crash, which is from the first SOME GIRLS sessions, as we all should know, the same day they cut the bottom for Miss You.

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RomanCandle
Am I the only one who doesn't like this song?

No....I never really got into it either. Heard it on the radio when it was first released, intro'd as their new song and immediately thought it was a bit bland. And I NEVER got OVER that video with Jagger in those track pants......

I DO however think it's a bit better live. Not much, but a bit. I don't cringe but nor do I explode with joy!

A DJ playing Start Me Up the first week of its release in 1981 said enthusiastically during the fade out, "Sounds like the old Stones!" I don't think he knew the vagaries of its history but thought the Stones had recorded it months before but were just returning to an old sound he identified (that I myself couldn't identify). He had a good radar considering what's been revealed about the recording since. A friend of mine detected the same type thing (I related that in the "Tattoo You question" thread), but for a different Tattoo You song.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2014-10-09 07:37 by Title5Take1.

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GasLightStreet

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Mathijs

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stonehearted
<<Isn't there a version dating back to the Black & Blue sessions>>

Under the working title of Never Stop.

Let's try to set the record straight for the umpteenth time...

There is no 1975 version of SMU. All basic tracks of Never Stop/SMU where recorded at Pathe Marconi in late 1977 and early 1978, overdubs where recorded in April 1981. This Never Stop version from Youtube is one of 3 versions, the other two being longer and in much better quality, bit only circulating among tape traders and not released on bootleg.

All available versions have the same sound/instruments: Boogie MKI amps, Travis Bean Bass, Charlie's new cymbals, the Chris Kimsey production.

Mathijs

The track in this YT version is pre-China crash, which is from the first SOME GIRLS sessions, as we all should know, the same day they cut the bottom for Miss You.

Did Watts use the China at all on the Some Girls sessions? It doesn't appear on the SG album, it's first appearance are the Woodstock rehearsals and the sessions for Emotional Resque.

Mathijs

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Mathijs
The track in this YT version is pre-China crash, which is from the first SOME GIRLS sessions, as we all should know, the same day they cut the bottom for Miss You.

Did Watts use the China at all on the Some Girls sessions?

Blush, perhaps I should know, but poor little me, I never ever could tell those cymbals apart.
You always amaze me with your hearing abilities.

I do know I love Start me up, which was my first ever "newly released single" I got to
hear after being introduced to the band around the time they hit the charts with Emotional Rescue.
I am still recovering. I never knew what hit me.

Just as long as the guitar plays, let it steal your heart away

As soon as I hear that famous opening riff I...change the station. Just never could get behind this clunky, awkward tune. The stop/start rhythm bugs me.

Interesting trivia from Chris Kimsey about Mick singing it: "I don't know who'd found the warehouse, but it was big and cheap, they put the mobile truck inside there, and it was so cold that, when Mick did the vocals, you could see icy breath coming out of his mouth." From [www.soundonsound.com]

Anyway, I love it. In fact I recently finally got around to tuning my guitar to open-G for the first time just so I could play this song alone. (I even posted me singing and playing a truncated, sloppy version into my laptop camera on YouTube recently but won't link it here because if some here are trashing the Stones' "Start Me Up"...! But I'm one of the few SMU covers on YouTube with "vocal" in the title. I'm in the blue T-shirt.)

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Doxa
Drewmaster really nails it. A thumbs up from this direction, too! The song was back then a perfect introduction of the unique charm of this band to young fresh ears, and I think it still is like a school example of a typical Stones sound, all cylinders on.

But some more reflection of this important song.

We were discussing "Star Star" last week, and I think one of the discoveries was that it was a kind of land mark song in the sense that the dangers of self caricature and 'Stones by numbers' attitude were there seen for the first time. I think "Start Me Up" is another land mark song. There is a lot of same features as in "Star Star" but they function differently, and with different effect.

Most likely the song derives from SOME GIRLS sessions (I believe in Mathijs' arguments based on ear testimony, and the circulated stuff, but I don't count out the possibility that they might have tried it alraedy during BLACK & BLUE sessions). Like noted here, the riff is a signature one by Keith. That is to say, it is based on 'airy' Open G, like so many classical riffs he had written during the years since introducing it in "Honky Tonk Women", peaking in EXILE. However, what is noteworthy in those Pathe Marconi sessions, and the new sound they created there, was that of not using the old riff pattern and OpenG as much as before. In SOME GIRLS, is there actually only one OpenG song? This is to say that to an extent Keith was probably got a bit tired of it, or thought that he had gotten everything he could get out of it creatively. (The last is my interpretation, but I need to give credit to DandelionPowderman for pointing out this development out of OpenG during the late 70's - a development that is not seen widely these days, if not at all). The danger of non-inspired repitition could be heard, for example, in some IT'S ONLY ROCK'N*ROLL tracks, such as "If You Can't Rock Me". The only track that offers a signature riff in BLACK&BLUE is "Hand of Fate" - only reminder in the album of a 'traditional' Stones rocker.

So my guess is that the rock version of "Never Stop" was something they probably they didn't find that inspiring at all when they tried it during SOME GIRLS sessions. It was 'just another' typical exercise on a signature riff/Open G they could do half-asleep by then, 'Stones by numbers' indeed. Yesterday's Papers. If they really cut "Miss You" in the same session, like is argued somewhere, the contrast in novelty was a huge one.

But things were different three years later when they had this king idea that there are all these potential tracks in the can they could use and make an album out of them. The greatness of TATTOO YOU is that it does have a very little ambition in it. It doesn't even try to make a contemporary statement, to offer an updated version of the band or anything like that. Just a collection of tracks from the vaults. And with that attitude it makes one of their strongest contemporary musical statements ever. A huge success by accident (or due to artistic lazyness). Lucky bastards...

"Start Me Up" was a perfect leading single for the campaign. After "Fool To Cry", "Miss You" and "Emotional Rescue", none of them representing 'typical' Stones at all, but trying to reach currents, "Start Me Up" sounded like "fresh air" as Silver Dagger described. It was simple, basic, classical sounding Stones, "Brown Sugar" updated. And worked damn well in the musical climate of 1981.

The success of TATTOO YOU album and especially retro-sounding "Start Me Up" single, I argue, gave a bit twisted signal for the band. Artistically speaking, it was a rather easy catch. Just do the same old thing, and that will do. With UNDERCOVER and its leading single, the title track, they still tried to do something different, actually update their sound, but unfortunately, it didn't do at all as good as did TATTOO YOU and "Start Me Up". There was a lesson there I guess as well.

The reason why I think that "Start Me Up", to go to my initial point, is a land mark song in their career, is not that it is probably their last huge song (a real classic), but as it offered a new template for the Stones music ever since. Their landmark sound is their best commercial weapon. If you like, the success of "Start Me Up" nailed the coffin in Stones' creative career, and they haven't much tried to get out of there. It is like an argument that 'the Stones sound and should sound like this'. Signature sound is there in, say, "Mixed Emotions", "Highwire", "Don't Stop", "Rough Justice", etc. etc. Lots of OpenG riffage.

So, in a way, I think "Start Me Up" works similarly as "Star Star" once did - going 'Stones-by-numbers', but this time the reference is not Chuck Berry, but their own musical heritage from the golden 1968-72 days, even though the music is a bit simplified caricature-like compared to those rich creative years.

The irony is that for a reason or other, they haven't been able to repeate the success of "Start Me Up", no matter how much they've tried. In a way, there is some originality in the song; probably because it is no manufactured to sound like The Stones, that is, "Start Me Up", but was still created out of inspiration. Its groove is so natural, breathing-like, all the components naturally at home. The band was still so juicy at the time that even their half-baked ideas had a potentiality to become smash hits.

- Doxa

I would not have been able to write the quoted post, of course. Despite that, if I hypothetically could have written it, I am not certain if I would have done, either.

Because much in what you say in its praise, Doxa, maybe in a more qualified praise than what you would have done when it was fresher, in passing that as a very impressing fact to me, would from me alone have ended up as too negative. However, now, if I am permitted, in many ways your post may serve as a reference and a door opener for me, too, to present a view of being rather more reserved to "Start Me Up", but not reluctant.

One point in itself is that this song was not my beginning as a listener to the Stones, and was not what admitted me to the band and its music. The first song that presented itself as single on the radio, that was my first heard single as such, and then I already knew the first two albums and the compilation "AROUND AND AROUND quite well, even if I myself had no recordplayer yet, was "The Last Time".¨From then I have followed the band through all the years, maybe not with so deep understanding, but always with eager interest. Albums and singles. That approach supplies a rather contrasting background, from which to be confronted with "Start Me Up" as Stones issue than to begin with it.

Many years later then and having as listener gradually taken part in many periods of the Stones, I experienced "Start Me Up" as almost suspiciously catchy, as most Stones songs never have done to me, well the single B-side "You Can't Always Get What You Want" did, but obviously that as not an easy song. However, whatever it really is, "Start Me Up" appeared to me then as also now, as easy, too easy, even if it was quite, quite good, I don't contest that. But then not so interesting, not so important and not so impressive as so many songs especially before, but also later. And I did not have the term "Stones by numbers" in my vocabulary then, and I am reluctant to that term now that I know about it. My thinking at the time, however, was in a non-analytical way as always for me towards music, that "Start Me Up" emerged to me as a rather, if I may say so, "cheap" sister song to some of their earlier characteristic songs of the band, I was not certain which, and almost without any of the substance I often have found in Stones songs. I have seldom been opposed to the pop aspect, sometimes more or less prevalent in the Stones songs. My objection is not of that sort. But even those songs have had more of substance than "Start Me Up".

So to me "Start Me Up" in some way is their very good pop song in a highly superficial way, without the importance or substance I, for instance, found in the song "Highwire". I don't want to knock "Start Me Up", though. The song has contributed to renew their fan base, with yourself as a prime individual example, which is a mighty important effect. And, besides, to me "Start Me Up" is one of the better songs of its album, where I don't want just now once again to say anything negative about that album. But as song of interest, "Start Me Up" can in no way to me rival later songs like "Love Is Strong" and many more in fact that to me strangely never are met with the same respect from so many posters. On the other hand, "Start Me Up" also to me is decidedly better than later songs like "You Got Me Rocking" or "I Go Wild", which both to me sound rather formulaic, but less good than "Start Me Up". However, I find it more legitimate for those songs to be that, as I thought VOODOO LOUNGE meant a necessary refinding of their identity, after they had gone astray in the studio album releases before that. That motive I don't find as to "Start Me Up". After all, I repeat that I do not find it bad, on the contrary, but somewhat limited in the said way.

Last edit: Correction of confusing double writing error. From wrong "if my say so " to intended "if I may say so".



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2014-10-09 14:21 by Witness.

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Mathijs

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GasLightStreet

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Mathijs

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stonehearted
<<Isn't there a version dating back to the Black & Blue sessions>>

Under the working title of Never Stop.

Let's try to set the record straight for the umpteenth time...

There is no 1975 version of SMU. All basic tracks of Never Stop/SMU where recorded at Pathe Marconi in late 1977 and early 1978, overdubs where recorded in April 1981. This Never Stop version from Youtube is one of 3 versions, the other two being longer and in much better quality, bit only circulating among tape traders and not released on bootleg.

All available versions have the same sound/instruments: Boogie MKI amps, Travis Bean Bass, Charlie's new cymbals, the Chris Kimsey production.

Mathijs

The track in this YT version is pre-China crash, which is from the first SOME GIRLS sessions, as we all should know, the same day they cut the bottom for Miss You.

Did Watts use the China at all on the Some Girls sessions? It doesn't appear on the SG album, it's first appearance are the Woodstock rehearsals and the sessions for Emotional Resque.

Mathijs

It's on the title track and Respectable. I was just looking at nzentgraf and both of those songs are in the first sessions. For some reason I thought there were two sessions and the first sessions were before he got the China crash. Perhaps those two songs were at the end of the first session. So maybe he was just using it occasionally or, after listening to the SG second disc and some boots, not at all otherwise!

Didn't go thru the thread, but I'd have to guess there aren't many that dislike this one. A great rocker, not much more to say!

I recall the first time I heard it, it caught me by surprise. I heard the radio dj say 'up next, the new track by the stones' ... I stopped what i was doing and waited for it, and it was awesome from the first listen!

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GasLightStreet

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Mathijs

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GasLightStreet

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Mathijs
Let's try to set the record straight for the umpteenth time...

There is no 1975 version of SMU.

Okay, let's. Here is a 2004 article and interview with Chris Kimsey published with Sound On Sound (SOS). SOS writer Richard Buskin actually sat down and talked with the actual Chris Kimsey and this is what he actually wrote in the actual article:

"The definitive latter-day Stones rocker, 'Start Me Up' is distinguished — like many of the band's other classic tracks — by an instantly recognisable opening guitar riff. However, it actually started life as a reggae song, committed to tape in March 1975 during the Black & Blue sessions, before being cast aside and re-recorded with a totally different arrangement at EMI's Pathé Marconi Studios in Paris in January and March 1978."

Regardless of what's actually in the YouTube video that's been dissected ad nauseum above, I'm actually inclined to agree with the actual producer who was actually there.

And where did Buskin get that information? Surely he didn't just make that up. It's not like SOS has a fact-checking credibility problem. Perhaps Kimsey actually even heard that actual March 1975 tape of the nascent demo, and perhaps Buskin took this information from his actual talk with Kimsey.

I would think Kimsey would know better on this matter than anyone on this board, actually.

Full article at: [www.soundonsound.com]

Uhhh... since they recorded Start Me Up the same day as Miss You, it was in 1977... somewhere in this time frame: 10th October - 29th November and 6th - 15th December.

So Buskin either got bad info or the wrote the wrong dates down.

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stonehearted
Okay, let's. Here is a 2004 article and interview with Chris Kimsey published with Sound On Sound (SOS). SOS writer Richard Buskin actually sat down and talked with the actual Chris Kimsey and this is what he actually wrote in the actual article:

"The definitive latter-day Stones rocker, 'Start Me Up' is distinguished — like many of the band's other classic tracks — by an instantly recognisable opening guitar riff. However, it actually started life as a reggae song, committed to tape in March 1975 during the Black & Blue sessions ...

But that's what Bushkin wrote, not what Kimsey said. He may have been so sure he knew that
that he didn't even ask Kimsey. It happens. Keith's autobiography lists Satisfaction
among the examples of open-G tuning, but it sure as hell wasn't Keith who said that.

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with sssoul

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stonehearted
Okay, let's. Here is a 2004 article and interview with Chris Kimsey published with Sound On Sound (SOS). SOS writer Richard Buskin actually sat down and talked with the actual Chris Kimsey and this is what he actually wrote in the actual article:

"The definitive latter-day Stones rocker, 'Start Me Up' is distinguished — like many of the band's other classic tracks — by an instantly recognisable opening guitar riff. However, it actually started life as a reggae song, committed to tape in March 1975 during the Black & Blue sessions ...

But that's what Bushkin wrote, not what Kimsey said. He may have been so sure he knew that
that he didn't even ask Kimsey. It happens. Keith's autobiography lists Satisfaction
among the examples of open-G tuning, but it sure as hell wasn't Keith who said that.

Keith was quoted in a Guitar Magazine-interview, saying that Little T+A was in open tuning - but I really doubt he could say that about Satisfaction

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with sssoul

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stonehearted
Okay, let's. Here is a 2004 article and interview with Chris Kimsey published with Sound On Sound (SOS). SOS writer Richard Buskin actually sat down and talked with the actual Chris Kimsey and this is what he actually wrote in the actual article:

"The definitive latter-day Stones rocker, 'Start Me Up' is distinguished — like many of the band's other classic tracks — by an instantly recognisable opening guitar riff. However, it actually started life as a reggae song, committed to tape in March 1975 during the Black & Blue sessions ...

But that's what Bushkin wrote, not what Kimsey said. He may have been so sure he knew that
that he didn't even ask Kimsey. It happens. Keith's autobiography lists Satisfaction
among the examples of open-G tuning, but it sure as hell wasn't Keith who said that.

Exactly, it's not stated by Kimsey, whom in fact has ALWAYS stated they did 40 takes of SMU in one big session, of which 38 where reggea and 2 where rock. That's it.

The only statement that comes close to 1975 is a statement by Richards from 1981 where he says that they recorded the track '5 years ago'.

All other statements that I know of is that it was recorded during the Some Girls or the ER sessions.

Still, they could have tried it in 1975 as well, that is unlikely but possible. They even did 'Munich Hilton' again in 1982 and 1985!

Mathijs

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Witness

One point in itself is that this song was not my beginning as a listener to the Stones, and was not what admitted me to the band and its music. The first song that presented itself as single on the radio, that was my first heard single as such, and then I already knew the first two albums and the compilation "AROUND AND AROUND quite well, even if I myself had no recordplayer yet, was "The Last Time".¨From then I have followed the band through all the years, maybe not with so deep understanding, but always with eager interest. Albums and singles. That approach supplies a rather contrasting background, from which to be confronted with "Start Me Up" as Stones issue than to begin with it.

Many years later then and having as listener gradually taken part in many periods of the Stones, I experienced "Start Me Up" as almost suspiciously catchy, as most Stones songs never have done to me, well the single B-side "You Can't Always Get What You Want" did, but obviously that as not an easy song. However, whatever it really is, "Start Me Up" appeared to me then as also now, as easy, too easy, even if it was quite, quite good, I don't contest that. But then not so interesting, not so important and not so impressive as so many songs especially before, but also later. And I did not have the term "Stones by numbers" in my vocabulary then, and I am reluctant to that term now that I know about it. My thinking at the time, however, was in a non-analytical way as always for me towards music, that "Start Me Up" emerged to me as a rather, if my say so, "cheap" sister song to some of their earlier characteristic songs of the band, I was not certain which, and almost without any of the substance I often have found in Stones songs. I have seldom been opposed to the pop aspect, sometimes more or less prevalent in the Stones songs. My objection is not of that sort. But even those songs have had more of substance than "Start Me Up".

So to me "Start Me Up" in some way is their very good pop song in a highly superficial way, without the importance or substance I, for instance, found in the song "Highwire". I don't want to knock "Start Me Up", though. The song has contributed to renew their fan base, with yourself as a prime individual example, which is a mighty important effect. And, besides, to me "Start Me Up" is one of the better songs of its album, where I don't want just now once again to say anything negative about that album. But as song of interest, "Start Me Up" can in no way to me rival later songs like "Love Is Strong" and many more in fact that to me strangely never are met with the same respect from so many posters. On the other hand, "Start Me Up" also to me is decidedly better than later songs like "You Got Me Rocking" or "I Go Wild", which both to me sound rather formulaic, but less good than "Start Me Up". However, I find it more legitimate for those songs to be that, as I thought VOODOO LOUNGE meant a necessary refinding of their identity, after they had gone astray in the studio album releases before that. That motive I don't find as to "Start Me Up". After all, I repeat that I do not find it bad, on the contrary, but somewhat limited in the said way.

A good criticism. I was looking for your account, since I know your stance towards TATTOO YOU, and I got a good one. There is a difference if one starts with "The Last Time" in 1965 or with "Start Me Up" in 1981, even though, now thinking of those two songs, they are't that different... Like I said I have some diffuculties in trying to be 'objective' about "Start Me Up" (or TATTOO YOU altogether), since it obviously means that much to me. It was a perfect introductionary song for fresh ears. But I do understand the view that for more 'experienced' ears the song might not have been that impressive. Probably nothing new or exciting under the sun, but just a 'catchy' song - especially if one is treated with new Stones releases such songs as "Satisfaction", "Jumpin' Jack Flash", "Honky Tonk Women" or "Brown Sugar", it might sound even lame...

But what is noteworthy, I think, with "Start Me Up" that it probably is the last song that big time charmed new audiences. I don't think any song ever since had have that effect - "Undercover Of The Night" and "Love Is Strong" probably due to some extent (and who knows if "Doom & Gloom" as well) - and surely it was the last song they ever have done that took is place among the other classics in their show. Starting from 1981 it found its place as a gig highlight with things like "Flash", "Brown Sugar", etc. when they want the audience go wild in the final part of the show (or start the show). It was rated among big Stones songs - classics - just from the start. I might not over-exaggarate if I say that today it might belong to TOP FIVE in their most well-known songs. For 'masses' it is a signature song for them as much as "Satisfaction" is.

Whatever all that means is that there must be something substantive in it... Even though the logic of hit songs is always a bit mystical... Why one turns out to be a classic, and other not...

I find your description of VOODOO LOUNGE as "necessary refinding of their identity" a spot on. I try to connect that to the idea I said of "Start Me Up" earlier, since I see there something similar, or why I see "Start Me Up" as a land mark song for them ever since. Let me put it this way: I think the whole album works similarly as "Start Me Up" - an introduction to their classical sound. There is not any longer one monster song, with a landmark huge riff, but the whole album makes the similar statement. The difference is that with "Start Me Up" refinding the identity comes by an accident, whereas in VOODOO LOUNGE that is intentional (for example, "Start Me Up" being one model in mind how the Stones should sound like or how refinding the identity can be done).

- Doxa

<<The only statement that comes close to 1975 is a statement by Richards from 1981 where he says that they recorded the track '5 years ago'.>>

Actually, I like that source even better. Thanks for clearing that up. Black and Blue sessions it is then. At least in terms of origins and such. So that's why so many think it originates from B&B--because one of its composers indeed confirmed it before too much time had passed to muddle the memory banks.

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stonehearted
<<The only statement that comes close to 1975 is a statement by Richards from 1981 where he says that they recorded the track '5 years ago'.>>

Actually, I like that source even better. Thanks for clearing that up. Black and Blue sessions it is then. At least in terms of origins and such. So that's why so many think it originates from B&B--because one of its composers indeed confirmed it before too much time had passed to muddle the memory banks.

I think it is the phrase "committed to tape in March 1975" that is the controversy here, not that the idea was conceived in 1975, or if they jammed on that reggae-riff back then.

Well Keith said "recorded" which I would take to mean "committed to tape". It's controversial here because we've only heard about the Some Girls versions. Who knows what else they've got locked away in the vault? We haven't heard every take of every session by any stretch.